the companies that were backed, hyundai, lg and samsung, are now household names. other asian countries, like china and japan, funded industry too often within impressive results. >> together, they had 8% of global ship building in 1975 this year, they have more than 90%. it is entirely product of industrial policy and in particular, subsidies by governments. >> reporter: u.s. ship building once thrived, says lind, thanks in part to subsidies but in the 1980s, president reagan eliminated many of those subsidies. how is the industry doing today? >> the united states has 0.5% of commercial sea going, ship building right now. of course, industrial policy can be a losing strategy, too. the government is spending all this mound favoring one industry over the other. it is going to make massive mistakes. >> you get a misallocation of resources. >> reporter: look at the company solyndra got a big funding from president obama's department of energy and went bankrupt, costing taxpayers half a billion dollars. the federal government might you can wary after the solindra disas